Towards desertification?
It is a well-known phenomenon: Portugal loses some of its inhabitants every year! Over the last decade, the country has lost 2% of its population. At the same time, the population is increasingly concentrated in the cities and along the coast, leaving the interior behind. Lisbon and its surroundings, as well as the Algarve, are the only regions that are growing in population. After peaking in 2008 with 10.6 million inhabitants, the country's population has begun to decline, and now stands at 10.3 million. The projections are worrying and dramatic: at the current rate, by 2050, the Portuguese will have only 9 million inhabitants and barely more than 7 million in 2099! Emigration, coupled with a low fertility rate (1.42 children per woman), is the main reason for this deficit. More than 68,000 people leave the country each year to try their luck elsewhere, mainly in Europe: in the United Kingdom and Spain, in particular, but also in Switzerland, France (in 2020, the number of Portuguese in France will be 600,000), Germany and Luxembourg. If emigration in Portugal sometimes gives the impression of being the natural reflex of a people of conquistadores, the reality is less romantic... Then as now, if the Portuguese emigrate, it is above all in the hope of a job and better living conditions. With an emigration rate of over 21%, Portugal is the European country from which people emigrate the most. More than one in five Portuguese live abroad! What is new is that emigrants are now often young and qualified, an undeniable loss of resources for their country of origin. The Alentejo is no exception to these trends: the desertification observed since the 1970s has not been curbed by the various development strategies. The region's population has decreased by 6.9% in 2021, with a negative natural and migratory balance. In the same period, while Évora and Viana do Alentejo saw their populations increase slightly, the municipality of Mourão alone lost almost 18% of its population. In the district of Beja, the statistics are comparable: some municipalities lost between 16 and 21 percent of their population, while births fell by more than 10 percent. As for the average population density, if it is 24 inhabitants per km2 in Alentejo (for 114 in the national territory), it drops to 5.6 inhabitants per km2 in Mértola, in the Baixo Alentejo!
An aging population
As in the rest of Europe, Portugal's population is aging. More than 23% of the inhabitants residing in Portugal are over 65 years old, with a median age of 46.2 years. Half of the population is over 45 years old (40.8 in 2008). This makes Portugal the second oldest country in Europe, after Italy and ahead of Finland, Greece and Germany. This not only reduces economic activity and dynamism, but is also a source of increasing expenditure for the state, which has to pay for the care of the elderly, particularly retirement pensions. This is all the more true since, as life expectancy increases, so does the average age. A trend that is even more severe in Alentejo, where there are almost 229 elderly people (over 65) for every 100 young people (under 20). In the national territory, the index is 182 per 100. Another foreseeable consequence of the aging of the population is the loss of the working population: it could reach 30% in Portugal by 2050! Another worrying prospect for the Portuguese economy.
Immigration to the rescue
But Portugal is reacting and trying to find solutions. Going against the grain of other European countries seeking to restrict the entry of migrants into their territory, Portugal is banking on immigration to stem its demographic decline. In May 2018, at the Socialist Party congress, Prime Minister Antonio Costa declared, "We need more immigration and we will not tolerate any xenophobic discourse." The statement is still valid: in Portugal, it is the arrival of foreigners in the territory that can control the migratory balance. In 2020, for example, the balance was positive: the difference between inflows and outflows was + 41,000 people. And the number of immigrants is constantly increasing. In the same year, there were 662,095 resident foreigners in Portugal. In addition to retired European citizens (English, French, etc.), many of whom are attracted by the sunshine, tax advantages and security, Portugal welcomes a large number of Brazilians every year (nearly one third of all immigrants), as well as Cape Verdeans, Romanians, Ukrainians, Chinese, Italians, etc. The vast majority of these immigrants have Portuguese as their mother tongue (Brazil, Cape Verde, Angola, etc.). Another population is growing a little more each year: that of the nationals of the Indian subcontinent (Indians, Nepalese...), of which several tens of thousands arrive each year in Portugal, to the great relief of the farmers of Alentejo..
The two official languages of Portugal
Surprisingly, Portuguese was only recognized as an official language of Portugal in 2001! It was on this date that it was mentioned for the first time in the Portuguese Constitution, article 11: "Portuguese is the official language." Like French, it is a Romance language, derived from Latin, born in the 3rd century B.C., when the Romans invaded the Iberian Peninsula. Portuguese is the fourth most influential European language in the world after English, Spanish and French. It is used by nearly 200 million Portuguese speakers, especially in the former colonized countries: Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, São Tomé and Príncipe, Macau and East Timor. Unusual: Portuguese is not the only official language of the country. In the north of the country, a dialect of the Tras-os-Montes region, Mirandese, is still spoken by nearly 10,000 people in an area of 500 km2!
